Cybec Showcase: 20th Anniversary

th Anniversary

Saturday 28 January 2023 / 6.30pm

Deakin Edge

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

WELCOME

Welcome to the MSO’s Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers Program Showcase concert for 2023.

Our annual Cybec Showcase concert is always an exciting way to commence a Season. Featuring the world premiere performances of four new orchestral works from the Program’s latest participants – the culmination of their fellowship with the MSO – the event offers a glimpse into the artistic and creative voices shaping Australia’s musical future.

This year’s Showcase is particularly special as we celebrate 20 years of the Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program. Acknowledging this milestone is a wonderful opportunity to recognise the program’s significant impact upon the many individual careers and creative pursuits of its participants, and its substantial contribution to a uniquely Australian voice within the wider orchestral canon.

Of course, this concert is also a celebration of the longstanding partnership between the MSO and The Cybec Foundation. We are deeply grateful for the Foundation’s steadfast commitment to the the MSO, which has led to the establishment of further artist development initiatives including our Cybec Young Composer in Residence and our Cybec Assistant Conductor Fellowship.

In appreciation of such extraordinary support, the MSO dedicates this Celebration Concert to the memory of the late Roger Riordan AM, founder of the Cybec Foundation, posthumous honorary life member of the MSO, and lifelong lover of music. Always interested in the individual lives and stories of those he assisted, Roger’s desire to encourage the pursuits of talented individuals was a driving motivator for supporting our emerging artist programs. A complete list of program alumni on pages 4–5 leave us in no doubt that this support has indeed made a lasting and meaningful difference to the lives and careers of so many who underpin the future of the Australian music sector.

I trust you will enjoy tonight’s program.

Sophie Galaise Managing Director

Roger Riordan AM

MELODY EÖTVÖS How to Grow Your Own Glacier

2019 CYBEC COMPOSER PARTICIPANT

JULIA POTTER Stay Close

CHRISTOPHER HEALEY Vita Nostra: Our Life (is brief)

NAOMI DODD Dawn ‘til Dusk in Kosciuszko

JOSEPH FRANKLIN you are meadow

LACHLAN SKIPWORTH Afterglow

2017 CYBEC COMPOSER PARTICIPANT

MEET THE CONDUCTOR

CARLO ANTONIOLI

Carlo Antonioli currently serves as the Cybec Assistant Conductor to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Previously, Carlo served as the Assistant Conductor to the West Australian Symphony Orchestra working with Principal Conductor Asher Fisch and guest conductors including Ludovic Morlot, Karina Canellakis, Mark Wigglesworth and Fabien Gabel. Whilst in Perth, Carlo also conducted WASO on their 2019 Regional Tour. For the Sydney Symphony Orchestra he has assisted Vladimir Ashkenazy and Simone Young.

2022 saw Carlo conduct the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Contemporary Opera Company’s productions of Book of Longing (Philip Glass), The Loser (David Lang) and To Hell and Back (Jake Heggie). He has regularly worked with the Australian Youth Orchestra, and conducted Sydney Youth Orchestras, the Australian Doctors Orchestra, Kuringai Youth Orchestra, Eastern Sydney Chamber Orchestra and Orange Symphony Orchestra. Carlo is a composer and member of the Sydney-based Dreambox Collective.

Carlo holds a Master of Music Studies (Conducting) from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and has participated in the Symphony Services International Conductor Development Program and the Australian Conducting Academy with the TSO.

HOST AND PRESENTER

BENJAMI N NORTHEY

Australian conductor Benjamin Northey is the Chief Conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and the Principal Conductor in Residence of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Northey also appears regularly as a guest conductor with all major Australian symphony orchestras, Opera Australia (Turandot, L’elisir d’amore, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Carmen), New Zealand Opera (Sweeney Todd ) and State Opera South Australia ( La sonnambula, L’elisir d’amore, Les contes d’Hoffmann). His international appearances include concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Malaysian Philharmonic and the New Zealand Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia and Christchurch Symphony Orchestras.

Northey studied conducting with John Hopkins at the University of Melbourne and Jorma Panula at the Stockholm Royal College of Music.

With a progressive and diverse approach to repertoire, he has collaborated with a broad range of artists including Maxim Vengerov, Julian Rachlin, Karen Gomyo, Piers Lane and many others.

In 2023, he conducts the Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Tasmanian and Christchurch Symphony Orchestras and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

CYBEC ALUMNI

CYBEC YOUNG COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE

2018 Ade Vincent

2019 Mark Holdsworth

2020 Jordan Moore

2021 Matthew Laing

2022 Alexander Turley

2023 Melissa Douglas

PATRICIA RIORDIAN ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

2012–2017

Benjamin Northey

CYBEC ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

2018–2020 Tianyi Lu

2020–2021 Nicholas Bochner

2022–2023 Carlo Antonioli

CYBEC ALUMNI CYBEC 21ST CENTURY AUSTRALIAN COMPOSERS’ PROGRAM

2003

Taran Carter

Roxanne Della-Bosca

Alicia Grant

Peter McNamara

Anthony Pateras

Daniel Rojas

2004

Trian Coelho

Cyrus Meurant

Nicholas Ng

Natalie Williams

2005

Adrian Mansukhani

Brad Taylor-Newing

James Wade

2006

Anne Cawrse

Lachlan Colquhoun

Julian Langdon

2007

Paul Castles

Robert Dahm

Nicole Murphy

James Rushford

2008

Lorenzo Alvaro

Elias Constantopedos

Benjamin McDonald

Mark Wolf

2009

Amy Bastow

Annie Hsieh

Alex Pozniak

Charlie Sdraulig

2010

Evan Lawson

Luke Paulding

Joseph Twist

Chris Williams

2011

Simon Charles

Lisa Illean

Daniel Portelli

Catherine Sullivan

2012

Holly Harrison

Jeanette Little

Samuel Penderbayne

Lachlan Skipworth

2013

Andrew Aronowicz

Lisa Cheney

Kym Dillon

Elliott Hughes

2014

Alex Garsden

Alice Humphries

John Pax

Harry Sdraulig

2015

Michael Bakrncev

Sally Greenaway

Samuel Smith

Alexander Turley

2016

Connor D’Netto

Cassie To

Ade Vincent

Stephen de Filippo

2017

Mark Holdsworth

Catherina Likhuta

May Lyon

Dan Thorpe

2018

Lisa Cheney

Jordan Moore

Daniel Riley

2019

Melody Eötvös

Lewis Ingham

Matthew Laing

Victoria Pham

2020

Georgia Scott

Alexander Turley

Alexander Voltz

Sam Wu

2021

Angus Davison

Melissa Douglas

Natalie Nicolas

John Rotar

2022

Naomi Dodd

Joseph Franklin

Christopher Healey

Julia Potter

MEET THE COMPOSERS

MELO DY EÖTVÖS 2019 CYBEC COMPOSER PARTICIPANT

Melody Eötvös was born in the Southern Highlands, NSW and studied piano and music theory under her parents’ tutelage from the age of five. Her first experimentations in composition coincided with learning the cello at age eight.

Melody completed her Bachelor of Music in composition with honors at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University. She holds a Doctor of Music from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music USA, and a Master of Music from the Royal Academy of Music, London UK. Melody is a Lecturer in Composition and Aural Studies at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

Melody was awarded the 3MBS National Composers Award, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra International Composition Competition (2016), and the orchestral prize for the Red Note Music Festival (2017, USA). She has participated in numerous international festivals and workshops and was recently Composer in Residence with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz. Past teachers include Simon Bainbridge, David Dzubay, Claude Baker, Stephen Leek and Dr. Gerardo Dirié.

Commissions in 2022 included The Sydney Symphony Orchestra (50 Fanfares Project and a joint commission with the Grand Teton Music Festival), The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and a major new work for the Flinders Quartet and Ashlyn Tymms (commissioned by John and Irene Garran).

How to Grow Your Own Glacier

Genghis Khan was a conqueror. During his lifetime and after (via his many grandsons) he founded the largest contiguous empire in history. There are stories, however, of certain regions that escaped Khan’s conquest. It is said that the people of these sanctuaries were able to create impassable walls of ice that prevented the armies from accessing their lands. In short, they were able to grow glaciers.

Glaciers are known to be ancient, wild, and slowly transforming geological forces. In present times, across the world the native glaciers that we know of are not doing so well. In light of their peril it is interesting to learn that in response to the advanced warming of our climate, humans have been able to still use the very factual practice of growing glaciers in order to preserve water in environments that wouldn’t normally be

able to sustain

vegetation.

In the regions where glacier-growing has been practiced for centuries, it is believed that the glaciers are not only alive, but that they also have different genders. In these places, to ‘breed’ a new glacier you need to graft together (or ‘marry’) a male and female glacial fragment. They are then bound together with variety of local substances such as charcoal and husk, after which point, under accumulating snow, ice, and water, they slowly grow into fully active glaciers.

This piece explores a scenario of controlling and containing something seemingly wild.

MEET THE COMPOSERS

JU LIA POTTER

Julia Potter is an emerging Sydney-based composer. Inspired to write music surrounding the human existence and experience, Julia seeks to create music which transports the listener to a suspended reality and moment in time.

In 2021 Julia partook in Ensemble Offspring Hatched Academy, and this year has been accepted into the Omega Ensemble CoLAB Program for young composers. Her previous work has been performed by The Penny Quartet, Syzygy Ensemble, The Australian Youth Orchestra, The Melbourne University Symphony Orchestra, ANAM and the Arcis Quartet.

Her music for documentary Acts for the Invisible was featured at Sydney Film Festival and Mardis Gras Film Festival.

In 2021 Julia graduated with a Masters degree at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) specialising in film music composition, studying with Cameron Patrick. In 2018, Julia completed a Bachelor of Music with Honours at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, studying with Stuart Greenbaum, Elliot Gyger and Katy Abbott Kvasnica.

In 2019 Julia was the recipient of the Melbourne Recital Centre/Melbourne Conservatorium of Music graduate commission and 2017 recipient of the Esther Rofe Composition Award.

Stay Close

This piece is both a request to and a promise from me to my loved ones; a request and promise for them to stay close.

As I progress through my 20s, I witness my friends and loved ones growing alongside me. I see them pursuing goals, facing challenges (expected and unexpected), embracing change and travelling far and wide. It is a joy to watch and to celebrate each milestone. However accompanied by this joy comes a bittersweet feeling. It is difficult to see friends and family move away to new and unknown places. I have grieved for my friends as they have moved away and as I myself have done the same.

Stay Close attempts to encapsulate my feelings as the nature of my relationships stretch and reform. It contains moments of tension, despair and strangeness but also moments of excitement, triumph and, by the closing of the piece, peacefulness.

I’d like to dedicate this piece to my family and friends; stay close to me.

MEET THE COMPOSERS

CHRISTOP HER HEALEY

Christopher Healey holds a Bachelor of Music (Composition), Honours (Class I) from the University of Queensland. He has studied with renowned Australian composers Gerard Brophy and Robert Davidson, as well as eminent American composer, Daron Hagen. Christopher’s music is eclectic in style, atmospheric and evocative, from the transfixingly tender to the disturbingly macabre. He weaves fantastical tapestries of enchanting textures, warm lyrical melodies with extended harmonies.

He has been commissioned and/or performed by Omega Ensemble, Flinders Quartet, Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra, the BRON Saxophone Quartet, BoBBest of Brass, Ensemble Françaix, the Nickson Quartet and others. Christopher has also received prizes including the Alan Lane Award, A.G. Francis Prize, 2nd Place in the Arcadia Winds Composition Competition, 2nd Place in the ANZVS Composition Competition, and the Australian Postgraduate Award.

Vita Nostra: Our life (is brief)

This mercurial and exuberant piece was inspired in part by the dark fantasy novel of the same name by Ukrainian authors Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko. The title of the book comes from the lyrics of the old Latin student anthem, ‘Vita Nostra brevis est, Brevi infiniteur’, which translates to ‘Our life is brief, it will shortly end’.

The book’s protagonist, Sasha, is made to undertake bizarre and dangerous tasks to unlock latent abilities. but her potential and reckless pursuit of her studies leads her teachers to attempt to control her through fear. There is a particularly philosophical moment where one of Sasha’s mentors (who appears to be God in some sense) explains that love cannot exist without fear. Despite the threats wielded against her by her instructors, Sasha repeatedly pushes past the boundaries she has been warned to remain within, each time with greater and more terrible consequences. As a result, Sasha makes both exhilarating discoveries and terrifying overreaches. At the close, unable to be controlled by fear, Sasha does something extraordinary; she creates a universe in which love can exist without fear.

The musical language used in Vita Nostra draws on both traditional and contemporary gestures, including those of the film music idiom, and structurally responds to Sasha’s story-arch. Full of character changes, from mysterious and macabre to buoyant and optimistic, Vita Nostra is bursting with drama and vitality, and unified by the recurring melodic material that appears throughout.

MEET THE COMPOSERS

N AOMI DODD

For as long as she can remember, Naomi has been moved by the all-encompassing power of music. Her desire now as a composer, is to create music which affects audiences similarly. Naomi graduated from Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2019 with a Bachelor of Music Composition. Naomi has written a variety of solo and chamber works as well as orchestral. In 2018 she was selected to write for Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra then in 2019 was the recipient of Penrith Symphony Orchestra’s Young Composer Prize. In 2019 Naomi also received 2nd place in the Australian Flute Festival’s composition competition and in 2020 received Highly Commended in the Flute Society of NSW’s composition competition. In 2021 KPO commissioned Naomi to write her third orchestral work, Deep Calls to Deep.

Naomi’s inspiration is deeply connected to her emotional sensitivities, with compositions often finding their genesis in various experiential sensations. Her work ranges from intensely passionate and colourful moments to gentle fragments echoing the ethereal.

Naomi’s belief that all people possess an innate potential for musical appreciation shapes her desire to create music that reaches and impacts all who listen.

Dawn ‘ til Dusk in Kosciuszko

Dawn ‘ til Dusk in Kosciuszko is inspired by one of my favourite places in the world –The Snowy Mountains. A few years ago in autumn, I walked up to a place called Porcupine Rocks to watch the sunrise. As I sat on that cliff top at dawn, overlooking the Thredbo valley, a pink hue on the horizon surrounded me. All was still. All was quiet… Then, in a moment of breath, the sun’s rays hit the rock; dazzling sunlight races across the landscape. The day has begun.

Frogs and insects wake, calling their song to the morning; birds soar across the ranges, arcing gracefully through the wide sky; skinks creep cautiously onto the stony granite to warm their leathery bodies, while the last of summer’s alpine daisies reach for the warming daylight. As clear skies are broken, the day darkens. In the mountains, the weather changes rapidly. The alps, once glazed in sunlight become stark. Shifting clouds cast their shadows across the terrain. The chill of winter beckons as the temperature drops. A day in the mountains is full of beauty, movement, drama and vast skies. As the sun sets, the day comes to a close. The pink and orange hues of dawn return to the horizon. A cycle is complete. The animals ready themselves for night. The day is done.

Dawn ‘ til Dusk in Kosciuszko is my impression of an autumn day in the Snowy Mountains. As you listen, I hope you are transported and can sense both the intimacy and the vastness, the beauty and the magnitude, of this special place in Australia.

MEET THE COMPOSERS

JOSEP H FRANKLIN

Joseph Franklin is a composer and performer from regional Victoria, currently based in Narrm/Melbourne. His work draws on post-human and ecologically informed understandings of historical and contemporary creative practice, and spans improvised, notated music, experimental and sound art.

Franklin has composed for a range of ensembles including the Australian Youth Orchestra, Flinders Quartet, Ensemble Nouveau and Geist Quartet. Along with leading his own projects, he is a member of new music ensemble The Music Box Project and co-founder of experimental performance group The Opera Company. He has performed in the United States, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Turkey and Australia.

Described as “the avant-garde of today” (The Weekend Australian), his 2019 release Amen was recorded in NYC with Marc Hannaford and Satoshi Takeishi. His chamber opera Jouska, was performed by The Music Box Project at BIFEM in 2019—which received the award for excellence in experimental music at the 2020 Art Music Awards. “Jouska was the standout work for its integration of music and theatrical aspects and the variation of compositional techniques” (Classik On).

you are meadow

You are meadow, but once you were an open cut in a place no one wants to remember. You are the ashes of a brass band, too few opportunities for the young. The shadow of my instrument. You are lambs eating from morning hands. At night, you are the absence of a dog, of a body, of play. For the women in the haunted hills, mothers of coal and prehistory, they are the stronghold of a working class. You do not sing ecological laments or paint landscapes into notes. You spring in perpetual meadows and linger in the already-past. The concrescence of the orchestra in two parts, only to cut once again. the beauty and the magnitude, of this special place in Australia.

MEET THE COMPOSERS

LACHLAN SKIPWORTH 2017 CYBEC COMPOSER PARTICIPANT

Hailed by The Australian as possessing a “rare gift as a melodist” and by Limelight as expressing “both exquisite delicacy and tremendous power”, Australian composer Lachlan Skipworth writes orchestral, chamber, vocal and experimental music. His vivid musical language is coloured by three years spent in Japan where his immersion in the study of the shakuhachi bamboo flute inevitably became a part of his muse. Winning the prestigious Paul Lowin Prize for orchestral composition in 2016 established Skipworth’s reputation, and led to a string of major commissions and a stint as composer-in-residence with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights include performances by Diana Doherty, Genevieve Lacey, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Australian String Quartet, the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Skipworth’s recordings continue to gather critical acclaim, including a five-star review for his debut album and an ARIA nomination for his second, as well as frequent radio play across Australia.

Afterglow

Dusk has always held a special beauty for me, particularly the pervading sense of stillness as the colours in the air slowly shift and fade, quietly settling before the darkness comes. In composing afterglow, I hoped to capture musically these moments caught between the lingering sense of what was and the anticipation of what is to come. To depict this, the piece conjures not only the slow turning of colours, but also the soft rustle of leaves after a gust of wind, and the bubbling of foam that follows a broken wave.

After a short introduction, the string section begins to murmur gently as pizzicato flickers leave trails of sustained sounds in their wake. Despite a series of increasingly colourful interjections, the cluster harmony is bound tighter and tighter until finally broken apart by a tutti flourish that retreats to end the first section. A series of open-voiced chords follow, subtly twisting as the harp, piano and vibraphone weave a path through the floating harmonies. After a sparsely orchestrated interlude, the music swells to a climax of tutti surges from which soaring melodies emerge. Gradually the sound recedes to leave the piano and harp whispering a high interlocking figure that is surrounded by an eerie chord in the strings, a musical afterglow of sorts.

Musicians Performing in this Concert

FIRST VIOLINS

Tair Khisambeev Assistant Concertmaster

Di Jameson and Frank Mercurio#

Kirstin Kenny

SECOND VIOLINS

Matthew Tomkins Principal

The Gross Foundation#

Isin Cakmakcioglu

VIOLAS

Katharine Brockman

Isabel Morse*

CELLOS

Rachael Tobin

Associate Principal

Kalina Krusteva*

DOUBLE BASSES

Rohan Dasika

FLUTES

Wendy Clarke Associate Principal

OBOES

Michael Pisani Principal Cor Anglais

CLARINETS

Craig Hill

Stuart Byrne*

BASSOONS

Tim Murray*

HORNS

Nicolas Fleury Principal

Margaret Jackson AC#

Nicola Robinson*

TRUMPETS

Tristan Rebien*

Joel Walmsley*

TROMBONES

Don Immel*

TUBA

Nelson Woods*

TIMPANI

Matthew Brennan*

PERCUSSION

Alexander Meagher*

Nathan Gatenby*

HARP

Melina van Leeuwen*

KEYBOARD

Jacob Abela*

Correct as of 23 Jan 2023

Learn more about our musicians on the MSO website.

* Denotes Guest Musician # Position supported by